Chunavana App – A Polling Booth App to Guide You

You probably have shopping apps, news apps, games and social media apps on your phone already. With the upcoming Karnataka elections in mind, how about installing a polling booth app? On May 2nd, 2018, the Karnataka chief electoral officer launched a polling booth app called Chunavana. This polling booth app will help users find their assembly constituencies and polling stations.

Why Do we Need Chunavana App?

Any Indian citizen above the age of 18 years can cast their vote during elections. This is a privilege and duty of every Indian citizen. Voting is simple. Once you receive your voter ID card, all you need to do is visit the nearest polling center, prove your identity and cast your vote. However, every time the elections come around many people miss out on casting their vote because they do not know where to go.

With the Chunavana App, citizens will be able to find their way to a polling station in their constituency. This could help increase the number of votes cast on election-day and thus help ensure that the government formed is truly ‘by the people’.

The Chunavana App

This polling booth app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Apart from navigating users to polling booths, it also gives contact details for election officers. A recent survey showed that 17.5% of urban voters did not cast their vote because they would have to stand in long lines.

The Chunavana app gives live information on queue status thus allowing users to visit polling stations when the lines are shortest. According to the same survey, 7.5% of urban voters did not cast their vote because they did not have adequate information on the candidates. Again, this app comes to the rescue by proving information on the candidates and their constituencies.

If need be, it can also direct users to the health center and police station closest to a polling station. The app can also be used to book wheelchairs for differently abled persons and senior citizens at polling stations. The app is useful even when elections are not being held as users can add their names to the electoral lists through this app.

Chunavana App Dashboard

The dashboard for this app is a GIS-based web portal. This acts as a one-stop information station for everything connected to the Karnataka State Elections. The portal provides information on constituencies, polling stations and facilities available at each station. It also helps electors cast an informed vote by proving information about the candidates, trends seen in the previous elections, winning margins and comparisons.